Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Inspiriation- Sound

I was trying to find some good examples of ebooks online and although there are many ebooks to choose from, the website 'spoken ink' seemed the most useful to me.

It is a website where mainly short stories (some of them classics) are read by famous actors. The idea is to download the content for a small fee and then spread the word about this website by word of mouth (as oppose to buying them on CD or buying stories through I-Tunes). They read shorter stories which are more convenient for downloading. Derek Jacobi in particular, is fantastic in this reading, but many famous actors have contributed to this site reading a variety of stories, from stories to children, to stories for adults.

However, this is a stark reading, no sound effects, no other actors. I only want this kind of reading if I can find someone who can express characters through voice extremely well. The advantage of a reading like this of course is... that I only need one person to do it. This would work with a book like 'War of the Worlds' as it is mainly told from one man's point of view in the first place.

The more traditional version of a 'CD Drama' might be a little easier to manage, it would be easier to communicate character by using different actors, people are less likely to get confused. I think I will have to incorporate some sfx into my new media narrative, it would be impossible to make it truly 'immersive' without it.
Having no sfx would rely far too much on the actor's vocal presence (i.e. I would need someone like Patrick Stewart or Derek Jacobi to read it in order to keep the audience intrigued).

Although they are not massively popular in the UK, the BBC did create some CD drama's for it's Doctor Who franchised before it's revival. The problem with this approach of course is finding enough talented/ convincing voice actors and the spread of people will depend entirely on the story chosen.

My major worry with sound in particular is that the quality will not be good enough for the production, finding good recording equipment is difficult, and an interactive new media narrative really relies on sound as a major contributing factor.